Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Methodology of Originalism

[We have the following announcement from our friends at the Institute for Constitutional History.]

The Institute for Constitutional History, along with The George Washington Law Review, is proud to announce a symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention [on November 3-4, 2011].  The keynote address, "The Methodology of Originalism," will be presented by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States.  Panel discussions will feature prominent federal jurists and academics.

We would like to invite you to attend the Symposium.  In order to do so, you must register to attend one of the symposium's events.   Information about the Symposium, including the panel discussions and registration information, can be found here.  Please note, however, that Justice Scalia's keynote address is a ticketed event.  Those who wish to attend Justice Scalia's address must enter a ticket lottery.  The registration deadline is October 28.

[This strikes me as quite a well-conceived event.  Harvard Law's John Manning will be handling the questions and answers for Justice Scalia.  There's some solid and interesting historical papers, such as Mary Sarah Bilder on "How Bad Were the Official Records of the Convention?" and Maeva Marcus’s "The Effect (or non-effect) of Founders on the Bench During the Early Republic."  Several of the law professor's papers are promising, including Jamal Greene’s “The Persistence of "Original Intent" as a Description of Originalist Interpretation” and John O. McGinnis’s “Thayer's View of Judicial Review and the Founding.”  Among the speakers scheduled for the Judges panel are Frank Easterbrook and Diane Wood.

[For more information, please contact the Institute for Constitutional History at (202) 994-6562 or
icsgw@law.gwu.edu]